Nice pistol, group and grips. Got a sure fire winner there Win-mag. Don’t recall ever seeing one. DWs are a bit of rare breed in these parts.
The old Colt should put ‘em all in the 10X ring. They gave the K-22 Masterpiece some serious competition.
We aren't exactly overrun with them, either. Especially a "new used" one. And this was one of their economy models.
I also learned that plug-and-play pretty much ain't on a Dan Wesson. Even something as simple as a new mag release required hand fitting, and breaking-in, on my part. The original had the usual banged-up takedown screw for the button, and the new one had a slightly different button face that I'm starting to like a lot. So even the opening for the mag release button was tighter than standard commercial parts specs.
I was stuned that the new part was too fat, and asked myself, "self, whoever heard of a M1911 generic magazine release that needed hand-fitting?" Some parts are fit with almost invisible seams.
The Hogue micarta grips should have been a no-brainer, but Murphy's Law showed up, and turned them into a two-hour project. First, one of the thin grip bushings for the thin DW grips seized inside the rubber grips. When I unscrewed it, the bushing came out, jammed into the back of the grip. And me with no spare thin bushings.
The other three bushings were properly staked to the frame, and even the use of the proper esoteric bushing remover wouldn't remove them. So out came my broken-screw tools, which worked easily because I just wanted to remove a thin sliver of threaded steel, and not the main bearing bolts of an engine.
Being otherwise properly prepared, I took the special tap that's needed, and cleaned up the threads in the frame before screwing in new stainless steel standard-size bushing for what was now going to be standard-thickness grips. I even took the specialized bushing tool, and staked the new bushings in place, just like Browning intended.
However, I read the specs on the tap, and it appears Browning had a specialized non-standard tap made for that job. The only place in the US military this thread is used, and he couldn't just go to the tool bin and design around something that used a standard threaded part known all over the world? For a pair of grips?
Actually, I'd love more "simple" projects like this, just for the learning experience. The successful completion of a simple task that takes two hours, including analysis, and hunting down specialized tools most M1911 shooters (and most gunsmiths) don't even know about, brings some smug satisfaction after I think about all the nerd trivia I can lay on someone else. :)